The Graduate Program

The MA Degree

[ overview | timeline | general course requirements | area course requirements | assessment ]

The MA program is a four-semester (generally two-year) program with 30 hours of course work, including at least 15 hours in graduate seminars at the 8000-level. Students generally receive full tuition benefits and stipend each year for tutoring in the Writing Lab and teaching in the department. Coursework builds on a student's bachelors-level knowledge of her or his field to provide a broad perspective on literature and culture while allowing for specialization and advanced research work.

Throughout their time in the department, students will be advised on designing programs of study not only to achieve their personal goals but also to enter the job market as successfully as possible. No grades of C will be counted toward the completion of the required number of hours for the MA. Although the lowest passing grade for graduate credit is B, graduate students should achieve A grades in significant portion of their courses, and students with a B or near-B average are not encouraged to pursue graduate work beyond the MA.

Time Line

• First Year: 18 hours of course work and a quarter-time assistantship in the fall and winter semesters designed to prepare the graduate student for teaching Freshman Composition in the second year.

• Second Year: Teach two sections of Freshman Composition per semester. Complete course work and prepare a concluding project, choosing from:
  1. porfolio and oral exam
  2. written exam based on a reading list
  3. MA Thesis

MA General Course Requirements

• English 8090 is only available for students during the semester or semesters in which they are writing a thesis
• Students can take six hours outside of the English Department with approval of the DGS
• MA students need 15 hours of 8000 level courses; the remaining hours may be either 7000 or 8000 level courses.

MA Area Requirements

MA in British and American Literature

• 9 hours in three of the following four areas: Medieval, Renaissance and 17th Century, Restoration and 18th Century, pre-1800 American Literature
• 3 hours in 19th or 20th Century British Literature
• 3 hours in 19th or 20th Century American Literature
• 3 hours in Criticism and Critical Theory
• The remaining hours may be taken as electives inside or outside (up to 6 hours) the department

MA in Literature with Creative Writing Emphasis

Admissions Requirements for Creative Writing

In order to be admitted to the program, students must submit a sample of creative work (approximately 20 pages of poetry or 30 pages of fiction). After admission, students must complete 12 hours in Creative Writing: 6 hours of workshop at the 7000-level (7510 in fiction,7520 in creative nonfiction, or 7530 in poetry), and 6 hours of workshop at the 8000-level (8510 in fiction, 8520 in creative nonfiction, or 8530 in poetry). No courses may substitute for workshops. With the approval of the student's advisor, one of the four semesters may be taken in a second genre. Students with extensive workshop experience may be allowed to take all 12 hours at the 8000 level. Please check with the Director of the Creative Writing Program before enrolling in a workshop for the first time.

Area Requirements for Creative Writing

• 12 hours in British and American literature, with
• 6 hours in two of the following areas: Medieval, Renaissance and 17th Century, Restoration and 18th Century, pre-1800 American Literature
• 3 hours in 19th or 20th Century British Literature
• 3 hours in 19th or 20th Century American Literature.
• The remaining 6 hours may be taken as electives inside or outside the department.
• Students in creative writing must also submit a portfolio, a substantial body of work of professional quality that must be approved by the faculty advisor (approximately 70 pages of fiction or drama or 40 pages of poetry).
• Students must also either write an MA thesis or pass the same comprehensive examination as that given to students in British and American Literature and other areas.

MA in Literature with Critical Theory Emphasis

• Students must take a minimum of 12 hours in critical theory in addition to other requirements
• 6 hours in English 8060, Studies in Criticism and Theory
• 6 hours drawn from the following:
• English 4060, Studies in Critical Theory
• English 4070, History of Criticism
• English 8050, Contemporary Critical Approaches
• English 8070, History of Criticism and Theory
• 12 hours of literature and language courses
• 6 hours in two of the following areas: Medieval, Renaissance and 17th Century, Restoration and 18th Century, pre-1800 American Literature
• 3 hours in 19th or 20th Century British Literature
• 3 hours in 19th or 20th Century American Literature
• The remaining 6 hours of electives might be filled by additional courses in literature or critical theory, including courses offered in other departments, or with thesis credits

MA in Literature with Folklore and Oral Tradition Emphasis

• Students will be required to take 12 hours of core literature and language courses:
• 6 hours in two of the following areas: Medieval, Renaissance and 17th Century, Restoration and 18th Century, pre-1800 American Literature
• 3 hours in 19th or 20th Century British Literature
• 3 hours in 19th or 20th Century American Literature
• The required core courses for the specialization in Folklore and Oral tradition include choice among the following for 12 hours:
• English 4700/7700, Special Themes in Folklore (up to 6 hours if topic is different)
• English 4770/7770, Oral Tradition (up to 6 hours if topic is different)
• English 8700, Studies in Folklore (up to 6 hours if topic is different)
• English 8770, Studies in Oral Tradition (up to 6 hours if topic is different)
• Electives (for 3 hours) include, but are not limited to
• English 4950/7950
• Internships at the Missouri Folk Arts Program (two semesters 3 hours)
• English 4780/7780, Women's Folklore and Feminist Theory
• And additional 3 hours in an approved outside area

Appropriate outside areas might include Anthropology, Classics, History, Native American Literature, Material Culture and Historic Preservation (Art and Archeology), Museum Studies, Religious Studies, Women's and Gender Studies, and Black Studies

Additional Considerations of the Emphasis in Folklore and Oral Tradition

• It is expected that students in the Folklore and Oral Tradition Program will take at least one course which includes a required fieldwork project.
• It is further expected that some of the questions on the MA comprehensive examination in Folklore and Oral Tradition include a multi-ethnic perspective.
• Students should attempt to take each of the core courses once before repeating courses with different topics, when possible.
• All students interested in the Folklore and Oral Tradition Program at the Masters Level must work out their program of study with one of the three professors who are associated with this emphasis.
• Outside courses for the Folklore/Oral Tradition Emphasis must be approved by one of the Professors of Folklore and Oral Tradition.

MA in Literature with Language and Linguistics Emphasis

• Students must complete 12 or more hours in English language and linguistics. Two courses are required
• English 4600/7600, Structure of American English
• English 4610/7610, History of the English Language (or their equivalents elsewhere)
• Students must also complete two of the following
• English 4200/7200, Introduction to Old English
• English 4620/7620, Regional and Social Dialects of American English
• English 4650/7650, Principles of Teaching English as a Second Language
• English 4630/7630, Topics in Linguistics
• English 8200, Studies in Old English Literature
• English 8600, Studies in the English Language
• In addition, students must complete 12 hours in literature courses
• 6 hours in two of the following areas: Medieval, Renaissance and 17th Century, Restoration and 18th Century, pre-1800 American Literature
• 3 hours in 19th or 20th Century British Literature
• 3 hours in 19th or 20th Century American Literature
• The remaining 6 hours may be taken as electives

MA in Literature with Rhetoric and Composition Emphasis

• Students must take a minimum of 12 hours in rhetoric and composition and criticism. Three courses are required
• English 8010, Theory and Practice of College Composition
• English 8040, Studies in Rhetorical Theory
• and 3 hours from one of the following
• English 4060/7060, Studies in Critical Theory
• English 4070/7070, History of Criticism
• English 4600/7600, The Structure of American English
• English 8060, Studies in Criticism and Theory
• A fourth course will be selected from one of the following
• English or Education T411, Studies in English Education: Teaching Writing in High School and College
• or a second course in Rhetorical Theory or Criticism
• In addition, students must complete 12 hours in literature courses
• 6 hours in two of the following areas: Medieval, Renaissance and 17th Century, Restoration and 18th Century, pre-1800 American Literature
• 3 hours in 19th or 20th Century British Literature
• 3 hours in 19th or 20th Century American Literature
• The remaining 6 hours may be taken as electives

MA in African Diaspora Studies

• Students will be required to take 12 hours of core literature and languages courses
• 6 hours in two of the following areas: Medieval, Renaissance and 17th Century, Restoration and 18th Century, pre-1800 American Literature
• 3 hours in 19th or 20th Century British Literature
• 3 hours in 19th or 20th Century American Literature
• Students must complete 12 or more hours in Africana Literature and Theory. Required course chosen from among the following: English 8410, Africana Theory and Literary Criticism; English 8050, 20th Century Theory; English 8070, History of Literary Criticism. At least 9 hours must be taken at the 8000 level. Available courses include:
• English 4420/7420, Africana Womanism
• English 4480/7480, Major Anglophone Africana Women Writers
• English 4181/7181, Themes in Africana Women's Literature
• English 4400/7400, Topics or Genres in Anglophone Africana Literature
• English 8400, Studies in Anglophone Africana Literature
• Appropriate electives might include courses in Romance Languages, Theatre, History, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology, Religion, Art, and Music.

Assessments of Work and Concluding Projects

Portfolio/Oral Exam or Comprehensive Exam

Overview:

Students who elect not to write a thesis have two options for satisfying the final requirement of the M.A. degree program: (A) a portfolio and oral exam, or (B) a written comprehensive exam based on a reading list. Both options require close collaboration with the faculty members of the examining committee.

Option A will be completed during the student’s fourth semester in the M.A. program. Option B will be completed during the fourth semester or the summer following it. (MA/PhD students choosing to take the exam will take it during the third semester).

The Director of Graduate Studies will meet with MA students during their second semester in the program for a preliminary discussion of the MA Comps procedures.

A) Portfolio and Oral Exam

The purpose of the M.A. portfolio is to provide students an opportunity to reflect formally on the course work they completed during their M.A. degree programs. Students electing this option will chose two faculty members to work with in revising two essays previously written during the M.A. work with an eye toward publication. The Director of Graduate Studies, in consultation with the student, will chose a third faculty member to serve on the student’s portfolio committee. Students who choose the portfolio option will be required to demonstrate broad coverage across the fields within English Studies as evidenced through the course work they took.

The portfolio:

Students will assemble a collection of the essays they have written over the course of their time in the M.A. program. They will then select two essays to revise for potential publication and an advisor with whom to work closely to revise these essays. Students are not required to ask the professors for whom they originally wrote the essays and are encouraged to select from faculty across the department. The two revised essays shall be selected from two different classes. The final portfolio must include the following:

1. A collection of all essays or projects the student wrote during her or his time in the M.A., including the originals of the revised essays.
2. A five-to-seven page introductory statement that explains the contents of the portfolio, offers a brief overview of each essay, contextualizes each essay, and explicates the approach the student took in revising the two selected essays.
3. Two revised essays of approximately 40-60 pages total.

Successful portfolios will demonstrate the following:

• Examples of sustained close reading and analysis
• Applications of critical or theoretical perspectives
• Breadth of knowledge as well as depth, particularly in the subject areas of the two revised essays. The student should be able to situate the two revised essays within the scholarship pertaining to each of these two fields.

The portfolio oral defense:

Students will defend the two revised essays, as well as those not chosen for revision, in a two-hour oral exam. The faculty member with whom the student worked plus two other faculty members determined by the Director of Graduate Studies will examine the student. One hour of the exam will consist of the student discussing the arguments, knowledge, methods, sources, and conclusions of the two revised essays. The other hour of the exam will consist of the student discussing the essays that were not revised; in other words, the student will also defend the papers written throughout the course work of the entire M.A. program. The committee may pass or fail the examinee on any part(s) of the portfolio. In the case of partial or total failure, the student will retake the oral portions that were failed and may need to revise further one or both of the revised essays. Students may not change papers or committees for the re-examination.

B) Written Exam Based on Reading List

The exam consists of three questions answered over a four-hour time period. Students in Literature and in Literature with a Creative Writing Emphasis are assigned to a three-member M.A. Comprehensive Exam Committee and write on three literature-based questions. Students with emphases in African Diaspora, Critical Theory, English Language & Linguistics, Folklore & Oral Tradition, or Rhetoric & Composition are assigned to a committee that includes two members from literature and one member from the emphasis area. They write two literature-based questions and one emphasis-area-based question.

Examination Dates:
Fall Term: Second Week in November
Winter Term: Second Week in April
Summer Term: Second Week in July

Note: Students must be enrolled during the semester or session in which they take the exam. It is possible to enroll for a single hour of examination credit at any point in the semester or session prior to the day on which the exam will be taken.

Establishing the Reading List

Students must have a reading list approved consisting of representative English and American literary works grouped under the following headings:

1. Medieval
2. Renaissance and Seventeenth Century
3. Restoration and Eighteenth Century
4. Early American (pre-1800)
5. Nineteenth-Century British
6. Nineteenth-Century American
7. Twentieth-Century British
8. Twentieth-Century American

In establishing the list, students will begin with the department’s core list below. Substitutions and additions aimed at satisfying the student’s particular interests are acceptable but must be approved by the committee.

Five to eight works should be included from each category: shorter works of poetry or prose, or various works by one author, can be assembled as a single item. The aim is to indicate a broad yet balanced historical and generic acquaintance with British and American literary traditions. To this end the members of the committee may recommend substitutions and will approve the final list based on their sense that it successfully meets the criteria of breadth and balance.

Note: Students in one of the emphasis areas (African Diaspora, Critical Theory, English Language & Linguistics, Folklore & Oral Tradition, or Rhetoric & Composition) will consult with the assigned faculty member in the area to arrive at appropriate readings for that area, and the number of readings from the above literary areas will be reduced by approximately one-third.

Note: Students taking their exams in the summer must follow the above schedule in the preceding semester.

The committee writes a set of questions based on the individual student’s reading list and stated interests. Three questions will be answered in all. All of the questions written by the committee will be informed by a one-to-two page narrative statement provided earlier by the student describing his or her coursework and specific interests. The student’s narrative should reflect on what she has learned in her course work and provide the committee a sense of what kinds of things she is prepared to write about, e.g., genre, theme, etc. No prior notice of the questions is given.

Students in Literature and Literature with a Creative Writing Emphasis: One will be a close reading exercise in which the student selects one of three possible texts and performs a close reading. The remaining two questions will be selected from a choice of three and will fall under the broad categories of genre, theme, and critical approach.

Students in one of the emphasis areas: One of the questions listed above will be eliminated and a question from the emphasis area will be substituted.

The Graduate Studies secretary will arrange a quiet location, with a computer, for students to work in. Students should notify the secretary as soon as they know they will be taking the MA exam. The secretary will proctor the exam on the selected date.

After committee members read and grade the exam independently, they will discuss their evaluations with one another and with the Director of Graduate Studies. A final grade of High Pass, Pass, or Fail is determined and results are conveyed to the student, usually within two weeks.

Grading criteria for the responses are:

• An introduction that shows the precise terms of the question are being addressed
• A clearly developed thesis with appropriate supporting evidence
• Specific references to the works in question, with emphasis less on plot summary and more on textual evidence to support the thesis
• Basic familiarity with the history and major phases of English and American literature
• Demonstrated facility with critical approaches to literature and the emphasis area

M.A. READING LIST IN ENGLISH AND AMERICAN LITERATURE

The MA reading list is designed with the understanding that the canon of English and American literatures has never consisted of a definitive list of texts. Individual scholars often have vastly different ideas about which texts are "central" to a field, and the canonical status of many individual texts has changed dramatically over time. Rather than present one list of texts that all students must read, then, the MU English Department asks that students participate in the ongoing process of canon formation. The following list of texts serves as the basis for each student’s to select an individualized reading list. Students should choose at least fifty items from the following list (each letter constitutes one item: e.g., I. A, II. G, etc.). Up to five works not on the list may be added, if the student so desires, with the approval of the committee.

Although students are encouraged to choose a list that corresponds to their own program of study, the MA comprehensive exam is designed as an opportunity for students to demonstrate their understanding of a wide range of English and American literatures. In that spirit, each student's reading list should include, relatively equally, all major genres and at least five to eight items from each literary period. Students should also select a diverse set of authors, regarding such factors as gender, race, and ethnicity.

1. MEDIEVAL
1. Beowulf (Raffel's translation).
2. Judith, Elene, Juliana.
3. Selection of Old English poems: Wanderer, Seafarer, Wife's Lament, Dream of the Rood (Raffel's translation).
4. Piers Plowman, Passus I-VII, XVIII (Goodridge's translation).
5. Pearl.
6. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Borroff's translation).
7. Chaucer, Canterbury Tales: "General Prologue," "The Knight's Tale," "The Miller's Tale," "The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale," "The Franklin's Tale," "The Nun's Priest's Tale."
8. Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde.
9. Malory, Morte D'Arthur, Books VII-VIII (Brewer's ed.).
10. The Second Shepherds' Play.
11. Margery Kempe, The Book of Margery Kempe.
12. Julian of Norwich, "God the Mother" from A Book of Showings.
2. RENAISSANCE AND 17TH CENTURY
1. Shakespeare, dramatic works: (1 tragedy: King Lear or MacBeth or Hamlet; 1 comedy or romance: A Midsummer Night's Dream or Twelfth Night or The Tempest; 1 history: I Henry IV or Richard II or Richard III).
2. Spenser, The Faerie Queen, Book I.
3. Sir Philip Sidney, An Apology for Poetry.
4. Marlowe, Dr. Faustus.
5. More, Utopia.
6. Webster, Duchess of Malfi.
7. Lyric Poetry:
1. Marlowe, Hero and Leander.
2. Sidney, Astrophel and Stella, Sonnets 1, 3, 31.
3. Spenser, Amoretti, Sonnets 1, 23, 75.
4. Shakespeare, Sonnets 2, 15, 29, 30, 73, 116, 129.
8. Donne, "The Extasie," "The Canonization," "The Good-Morrow," "Valediction: Forbidding Mourning," "The Flea," "The Sunne Rising," "Aire and Angels," "Good Friday, 1613, Riding Westward," and "Hymn to God my God, in my Sicknesse." Sonnets, 7, 10, 14. Selected Meditations, Sermons.
9. Ben Jonson, Volpone and "To Penshurst," "On My First Son," and "Song: To Celia."
10. Herbert, "The Collar," "Vertue," "Love (III)," "Prayer (I)," "Easter Wings," "Jordan (I and II); Vaughan, "Regeneration," "The Night," "The World"; Marvell, "To His Coy Mistress," "The Garden," "The Definition of Love," "On A Drop of Dew," "The Coronet," and "Upon Appleton House"; Crashaw, "In the Holy Nativity of Our Lord," "The Weeper," "Hymn in the Glorious Epiphanie"; Herrick, "The Argument of His Book," "Corinna's Going-A-Maying," "The Hock Cart, or Harvest Home."
11. Milton, Paradise Lost, Samson Agonistes, and "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity," "Lycidas," "On the Late Massacre in Piedmont," and "When I Consider How My Light is Spent."
12. Selections from the Norton Anthology of Literature by Women: Queen Elizabeth, "Speech to the Troops at Tilbury"; "The Doubt of Future Foes," "On Monsieur's Departure"; Mary Sidney Herbert, "To The Thrice-Sacred Queen Elizabeth"; Amelia Lanier, "Eve's Apology in Defense of Women," from Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum; Margaret Cavendish, Female Orations; Anne Finch, "The Answer" [to Pope's Impromptu], "To the Nightingale."
13. Aphra Behn, Oroonoko.
14. Two of the following: Browne, Hydriotaphia: Urn Burial; Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy; Nashe, Unfortunate Traveler; Sidney, Arcadia.
3. RESTORATION AND 18TH CENTURY
1. Wycherly, The Country Wife.
2. Congreve, The Way of the World.
3. Dryden, "To the Memory of John Oldham," MacFlecknoe, and Absalom and Achitophel.
4. Defoe, Moll Flanders or Robinsoe Crusoe.
5. Swift, Gulliver's Travels and "A Modest Proposal."
6. Selections from the Norton Anthology of Literature by Women: Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman; Mary Astell, "A Religious Retirement" from A Serious Proposal to the Ladies.
7. Pope, The Rape of the Lock, Essay on Man (Epistles I and II), and An Essay on Criticism, 2d & 3d Moral Essays.
8. Johnson, The Preface of Shakespeare, Lives (Dryden, Pope, and Gray), "The Vanity of Human Wishes," Rasselas, and Rambler, No. 4, on the novel.
9. Fielding, Joseph Andrews.
10. Burney, Evelina.
11. Richardson, Pamela.
12. Sterne, Tristram Shandy.
13. Gray, "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard"; Goldsmith, "The Deserted Village"; Collins, "Ode on the Poetical Character," "Ode to Evening"; and Smart, "Hymn to David," selections from "Jubilate Agno" (697-780); Cowper, selections from The Task in The Norton Anthology of English Literature, vol. 1.
14. Austen, Pride and Prejudice.
4. EARLY AMERICAN (pre-1800)
1. Native American Oral Traditions: "Talk Concerning the First Beginning" (Zuni), "Changing Woman and the Hero Twins after the Emergence of the People" (Navajo); "Iroquois or Confederacy of the Five Nations" (Iroquois), "Raven and Marriage" (Tlingit). These are available in the Heath Anthology of American Literature, Vol. 1.
2. John Winthrop, "A Model of Christian Charity"; William Bradford, from Of Plymouth Plantation.
3. Anne Bradstreet, "The Prologue," "Contemplations," "The Flesh and the Spirit," "The Author to Her Book," "Before the Birth of One of Her Children," "To My Dear and Loving Husband," "A Letter to Her Husband," and "Here Follows Some Verses upon the Burning of Our House"; Edward Taylor, selections from Preparatory Meditations; "The Preface to God's Determinations." "The Soul's Groan to Christ for Succor," "Christs Reply," "Upon a Spider Catching a Fly," "Huswifery"; Phillis Wheatley, "On Being Brought from Africa to America," "To the University of Cambridge, in New England," "On the Death of Rev. Mr. George Whitefield," "To S.M., a Young African Painter, on Seeing His Works," "To His Excellency General Washington."
4. Mary Rowlandson, A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson.
5. Samuel Sewall, selections from The Diary of Samuel Sewall; Sarah Kemble Knight, The Private Journal of a Journey from Boston to New York.
6. Jonathan Edwards, "Personal Narrative," "A Divine and Supernatural Light," "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," "Sarah Pierrepont."
7. Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography.
8. St. Jean de Crèvecoeur, Letters from an American Farmer.
9. Thomas Paine, Common Sense or The Age of Reason; Thomas Jefferson, selections from Notes on the State of Virginia.
10. Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa, The African, Chapter 2.
11. Royall Tyler, The Contrast.
12. Susanna Haswell Rowson, Charlotte, A Tale of Truth or Hannah Webster Foster, The Coquette.
13. Charles Brockden Brown, Wieland.
5. 19TH CENTURY BRITISH
1. Wordsworth, Preface to Lyrical Ballads; Coleridge, Biographia Literaria, (Ch 13 14); Lamb, "Dissertation on Roast Pig" and "On the Tragedies of Shakespeare"; Shelley, "Defence of Poetry"; DeQuincey, "On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth"; Hazlitt, "On Gusto"; Keats, letters: "The Vale of Soul-Making," "Wordsworth's Egotism," "Negative Capability," "On To Autumn"; Dorothy Wordsworth, excerpts from Grasmere Journals (Norton Anthology of Literature by Women).
2. Blake, Songs of Innocence and Experience or The Marriage of Heaven and Hell; Wordsworth, "The Ruined Cottage," "Tintern Abbey," "London, 1802," "Composed upon Westminster Bridge," "The World Is Too Much with Us," Lucy Poems ("She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways," "Strange Fits of Passion Have I Known," "A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal," "I Traveled Among Unknown Men"), "Ode: Intimations of Immortality"; Coleridge, "Kubla Khan," "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," "Frost at Midnight," "Dejection: An Ode," "This Lime Tree Bower My Prison."
3. Keats, "Lamia," "Ode to Psyche," "Ode on a Grecian Urn," "Ode to a Nightingale," "To Autumn," "The Eve of St. Agnes," "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer," "When I Have Fears," "Bright Star"; Shelley, "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty," "Mont Blanc," "Ode to the West Wind," "Ozymandias," "Alastor"; Byron, Manfred or Cain, Don Juan, "Dedication," Canto I, Canto II (Stanzas LII - XCIII, CIV - CXVIII, CXXIII - CCXVI), Canto III (Stanzas I - LXVIII, XCIII - CVIII), Canto IV (Stanzas I - LXXII), Canto XII (Stanzas I - XI), Canto XIV (Stanzas XLI - LXXXVIII), Canto XV (Stanzas XXVIII - LIV), Canto XVI (Stanzas I - CXXIII).
4. Mary Shelley, Frankenstein.
5. Scott, The Bride of Lammermoor or Ivanhoe or Old Mortality.
6. Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights.
7. Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre.
8. Mill, "On Liberty"; Newman, The Idea of a University (Discourses V-VIII); Arnold, "The Function of Criticism at the Present Time."
9. Tennyson, In Memoriam, "Ulysses," "Morte d'Arthur," "Tithonus"; Hopkins, "God's Grandeur," "The Windhover," "Pied Beauty," "As Kingfishers Catch Fire, Dragonflies Draw Flame," "Carrion Comfort"; Matthew Arnold, "The Forsaken Merman," "The Scholar-Gipsy," "Dover Beach"; Robert Browning, "My Last Duchess," "Fra Lippo Lippi," "Porphyria's Lover," "Andrea del Sarto," "Caliban upon Setebos."
10. Christina Rossetti, "Goblin Market," "Song (When I am dead, my dearest)," "In An Artist's Studio," "Passing Away"; Elizabeth B. Browning, Sonnets from the Portuguese, 1, 5, 22, 43, "The Cry of the Children," "The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point"; D. G. Rossetti, from House of Life: "A Sonnet," #19, #83; Hardy, "The Darkling Thrush," "The Convergence of the Twain," "Channel Firing"; George Meredith, selections from Modern Love; A. Swinburne, "A Forsaken Garden," "Hymn to Proserpine"; Ernest Dowson, "To One in Bedlam," "O'Mors! Quam Amara Est Memoria Tua Homini Pacem Habenti in Substantiis Suis"; Lionel Johnson, "The Age of a Dream."
11. Thackeray, Vanity Fair or Trollope, The Warden.
12. Dickens, Great Expectations or Nicholas Nickleby or Bleak House.
13. George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss or Middlemarch.
14. Hardy, Jude the Obscure.
6. 19TH CENTURY AMERICAN
1. Short fiction 1: Poe, "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Purloined Letter," "Ligeia," "The Man of the Crowd," "The Cask of Amontillado"; Hawthorne, "Rappaccini's Daughter," "Young Goodman Brown"; Melville, "Bartleby the Scrivener" or "The Paradise of Bachelors" and "The Tartarus of Maids."
2. Short fiction 2: Crane, "The Blue Hotel" or "The Open Boat" or "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky"; James, Daisy Miller or "The Real Thing"; Howells, "Editha"; Sarah Orne Jewett, "A White Heron," "The Foreigner"; Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, "A New England Nun," "The Revolt of Mother"; Charlotte Perkins Gilman, "The Yellow Wall-Paper"; Rebecca Harding Davis, "Life in the Iron Mills."
3. Emerson, "Nature," "The American Scholar," "Self-Reliance," "Experience," "The Poet"; Poe, "The Poetic Principle."
4. Thoreau, Walden, and "Walking," "Wild Apples."
5. Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter.
6. Melville, Moby-Dick.
7. Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
8. Whitman, "Song of Myself," "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry," "When Lilacs Last. . .," "Out of the Cradle. . .," "Passage to India"; Dickinson, Johnson numbers 49, 130, 216, 258, 285, 303, 328, 341, 449, 465, 640, 712, 986, 1068, 1129, 1463, 1624; E. A. Robinson, "Richard Cory," "Miniver Cheevy"; Crane, selections from War is Kind.
9. Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin.
10. Crane, The Red Badge of Courage.
11. Norris, McTeague or Frederic, The Damnation of Theron Ware.
12. Dreiser, Sister Carrie.
13. Chopin, The Awakening.
14. James, The Ambassadors or The Bostonians.
15. Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave; Norton Anthology of Literature by Women, excerpts from Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and from Harriet B. Wilson, Our Nig.
16. James, "The Art of Fiction"; Howells, selections from Criticism and Fiction; Twain, "How to Tell a Story"; Henry Adams, "The Dynamo and the Virgin" from The Education of Henry Adams; Alice James, selections from Diary in The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women; Booker T. Washington, "The Atlanta Exposition Address" from Up From Slavery; W. E. B. DuBois, "Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others."
17. Thoreau, "Resistance to Civil Government"; Sojourner Truth, speeches in Norton Anthology of Literature by Women; Margaret Fuller, excerpts from Woman in the Nineteenth Century; excerpts from Black Elk Speaks; Jane Addams, selections from Twenty Years at Hull House.
7. 20TH CENTURY BRITISH
1. Modern poetry: W. H. Auden, "In Memory of W. B. Yeats," "Musée des Beaux Arts," "As I Walked Out One Evening," "In Praise of Limestone"; Robert Graves, "The Blue Fly," "Recalling War"; Patrick Kavanagh, "In Memory of My Mother," "Canal Bank Walk," "Inniskeen Road: July Evening"; D. H. Lawrence, "Bavarian Gentians," "Piano"; Wilfred Owen, "Dulce Et Decorum Est," "Anthem for Doomed Youth"; Siegfried Sassoon, "To His Dead Body," "The Rear-Guard," "Dreamers"; Stevie Smith, "Not Waving but Drowning," "How Cruel Is the Story of Eve," "Dear Female Heart"; Stephen Spender, "The Landscape Near an Aerodrome," "Not Palaces," "One More New Botched Beginning"; Dylan Thomas, "Fern Hill," "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night, " "A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London"; W. B. Yeats, "Leda and the Swan," "The Second Coming," "Among School Children," "Sailing to Byzantium," "Lapis Lazuli," "Easter 1916," "A Prayer for My Daughter," "The Wild Swans at Coole."
2. Contemporary poetry: Eavan Boland, "The Journey"; Donald Davie, "With the Grain," "In California," "Devil on Ice"; Thom Gunn, "My Sad Captains," "Moly"; Seamus Heaney, "Glanmore Sonnets," "Punishment," "Funeral Rites"; Geoffrey Hill, "Ovid in the Third Reich," "September Song," from Funeral Music, #6 & #8; Ted Hughes, "The Thought Fox," "Wodwo," "Crow's First Lesson," "Second Glance at a Jaguar"; Philip Larkin, "The Whitsun Weddings," "High Windows," "Sad Steps," "Afternoons."
3. Drama: Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot or Endgame, and two of the following: Sean O'Casey, Bedtime Story; John Osborne, Look Back in Anger; Harold Pinter, The Homecoming; Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead; W. B. Yeats, Purgatory.
4. Shorter fiction: Samuel Beckett, "Company"; Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness; E. M. Forster, "The Celestial Omnibus"; Radclyffe Hall, "Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself"; James Joyce, "Araby," "The Dead"; D. H. Lawrence, "Odor of Chrysanthemums"; Doris Lessing, "To Room Nineteen"; Katherine Mansfield, "Bliss"; Somerset Maugham, "The Colonel's Lady."
5. W. H. Auden, "Making, Knowing & Judging," from A Dyer's Hand; T. E. Hulme, "Modern Art and Its Philosophy" and "Romanticism and Classicism" (both from Speculations); Walter Pater, "conclusion" to The Renaissance; Arthur Symons, "The Decadent Movement in Literature"; Oscar Wilde, "Preface" to The Picture of Dorian Gray, "Impressions of America," "The Decay of Lying"; Virginia Woolf, "A Room of One's Own"; W. B. Yeats, "The Symbolism of Poetry," "Modern Poetry," "The Autumn of the Body."
6. Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim or Nostromo.
7. James Joyce, Ulysses.
8. D. H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers or Women in Love.
9. Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse or Mrs. Dalloway.
10. Elizabeth Bowen, Death of the Heart.
11. E. M. Forster, Howard's End or Passage to India.
12. F. M. Ford, The Good Soldier.
13. Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea.
14. Samuel Beckett, Molloy.
15. Barbara Pym, An Unsuitable Attachment.
16. Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale.
17. Graham Greene, A Burnt-Out Case or Brighton Rock.
18. V.S. Naipaul, A Bend in the River.
8. 20TH CENTURY AMERICAN
1. Modern poetry: Hart Crane, "Voyages"; Countee Cullen, "Yet Do I Marvel," "Incident," "Heritage"; H.D., "The Sheltered Garden," "Eurydice," "The Master"; T. S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," "The Waste Land," "Four Quartets"; Robert Frost, "Mending Wall," "West-Running Brook," "Two Tramps in Mud Time," "The Oven Bird," "Once By The Pacific," "Design," "Birches"; Langston Hughes, "The Weary Blues," "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," "Harlem," "Theme for English B," "Morning After"; Claude McKay, "The Tropics in New York," "If We Must Die," "America," "The Harlem Dancer"; Marianne Moore, "The Steeple Jack," "He Digesteth Harde Yron," "The Jerboa," "The Mind Is An Enchanting Thing"; Ezra Pound, "In a Station of the Metro," "Hugh Selwyn Mauberly: Life and Contacts," Cantos I and II; Wallace Stevens, "The Snow Man," "Sunday Morning," "Final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramour," "Peter Quince at the Clavier," "The Idea of Order at Key West," "Evening Without Angels"; William Carlos Williams, "Danse Russe," "Asphodel, That Greeny Flower," "Spring and All," "The Red Wheelbarrow."
2. Contemporary poetry: John Ashbery, "Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror"; Imamu Amiri Baraka, "In Memory of Radio," "An Agony. As Now," "A Poem for Willie Best"; John Berryman, "Dream Songs 1, 14, 40, 77"; Elizabeth Bishop, "The Moose," "At the Fishhouses," "In the Waiting Room," "The Armadillo"; Gwendolyn Brooks, "My dreams, my works, must wait till after hell," "The Life of Lincoln West," "Young Africans," "The Boy Died in My Alley," "The Blackstone Rangers"; Rita Dove, "Parsley," "O"; Allen Ginsberg, "Howl," "America," "A Supermarket in California"; Robert Hayden, "Those Winter Sundays," "Paul Lawrence Dunbar," "Night-Blooming Cereus," "Frederick Douglass"; Anthony Hecht, "The Deodand," "More Light! More Light!," "The Hill"; Denise Levertov, "February Evening in New York," "Matins," "The Ache of Marriage"; Robert Lowell, "For the Union Dead," "Skunk Hour," "Memories of West Street and Lepke," "The Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket," "Mr. Edwards and the Spider"; James Merrill, "The Broken Home," from The Book of Ephraim, section 1 (A); Howard Nemerov, "Storm Windows," "The Ice House in Summer," "More Joy in Heaven"; Sylvia Plath, "Daddy," "Tulips," "Lady Lazarus," "Ariel," "Fever 103°"; Adrienne Rich, "Diving Into the Wreck," "Aunt Jennifer's Tigers," "Song," "To A Survivor," "Snapshots of a Daughter-In-Law"; Theodore Roethke, "The Lost Son," "I Knew A Woman"; May Sarton, "My Sisters, O My Sisters," "The Muse As Medusa"; Derek Walcott, "The Season of Phantasmal Peace," "Omeros, Book I," "The Schooner Flight," "A Far Cry from Africa"; Richard Wilbur, "Seed Leaves," "Love Calls Us to the Things of This World," "The Writer".
3. Drama: at least three of the following: Edward Albee, The Sandbox; Imamu Amiri Baraka, Dutchman; T.S. Eliot, Murder in the Cathedral; William Inge, Picnic; Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman; Marsha Norman, ‘Night Mother; Eugene O'Neil, Long Day's Journey Into Night; Derek Walcott, Dream of Monkey Mountain; Tennessee Williams, Glass Menagerie.
4. Short fiction: James Baldwin, "Sonny's Blues"; John Barth, "Night Sea Journey"; Jane Bowles, "Camp Cataract"; John Cheever, "The Swimmer"; Truman Capote, "Music for Chameleons"; William Faulkner, "Barn Burning"; Ernest Hemingway, "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place"; Bobbie Ann Mason, "Shiloh"; Joyce Carol Oates, "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?"; Flannery O'Connor, "A Good Man is Hard to Find"; Tillie Olson, "I Stand Here Ironing"; Grace Paley, "Distance"; I. B. Singer, "Gimpel The Fool"; John Updike, "A&P"; Alice Walker, "To Hell with Dying"; Eudora Welty, "A Worn Path"; Richard Wright, "The Man Who Was Almost A Man."
5. Didion, selections from Slouching Toward Bethlehem; Dillard, selections from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek; Eliot, "Tradition and the Individual Talent," "The Metaphysical Poets," "Baudelaire," "Ulysses, Order and Myth"; Frost, "The Figure a Poem Makes"; Marianne Moore, "Idiosyncrasy and Technique"; Ezra Pound, "A Few Don'ts by an Imagiste"; Adrienne Rich, "When We Dead Awaken," "Blood, Bread and Poetry"; Stevens, "The Necessary Angel"; Alice Walker, "In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens."
6. W. E. B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk.
7. Willa Cather, My Antonia or O Pioneers!.
8. Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence or House of Mirth.
9. F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby.
10. William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury.
11. Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises.
12. Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita.
13. Djuna Barnes, Nightwood.
14. Saul Bellow, Herzog.
15. Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man or James Baldwin, Another Country.
16. Carson McCullers, Member of the Wedding.
17. Toni Morrison, Beloved.
18. Alice Walker, The Color Purple or Meridian.
19. Louise Erdrich, Love Medicine or Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony or N. Scott Momaday, The Way to Rainy Mountain.
20. Maxine Hong Kingston, The Woman Warrior or Amy Tan, The Kitchen God's Wife.
21. Richard Wright, Native Son.
22. David Bradley, Chaneysville Incident or Charles Johnson, Middle Passage.

MA Thesis

The thesis (50-75 pp.) is recommended to students who are considering pursuing doctoral work, since it provides the opportunity for a first extended exercise in independent research at the graduate level. Those seriously considering the thesis option should, at the very outset of master's work, discuss possible thesis topics with the Director of Graduate Studies and faculty members who seem likely to constitute the student's MA Thesis Committee (two English Department members and one outside member). Students present and defend their theses to this committee in an oral examination.

The MA Thesis includes up to 6 hours of English 8090. Students generally take 6 hours of thesis credit in one semester while doing research and writing. Some will take 3 hours in the fall and then 3 more in the winter semester if they are working closely with an adviser at the outset of the second year. English 8090 counts towards the total number of course hours required for the MA, but does not count towards the required number of 8000-level courses.

A booklet explaining the MA Thesis is available from the Graduate Studies Secretary. For further information in this handbook, see the section on theses and dissertations.